For the weekend of September 14-16, Claire and I went out to Pontresina and met Mom and Dad, who had arrived there the same day from the south of Switzerland.  We (well, Claire did the work) had planned a big hike up the Val Roseg, a spectacular mountain valley heading south from Pontresina towards the Italian border.

Here's a map of our hiking route. Pontresina is (A), the Hotel Roseg is (B), the lake at the foot of the glacier (Lej Vadret) is at (C) and the Hut Coaz is (D).  So now I'll explain what all those places are...

Friday after lunch we started at the Pontresina train station and hiked south up the valley.  This part of the hike looked a lot like British Columbia - dry pine forests, mountains and the river...

The hike wasn't very steep and we arrived at the hotel early for dinner.  This is Claire on the bridge just outside the hotel...

The scenery there was already beautiful, but it got better... The next morning, Saturday, after fortifying ourselves with a big breakfast with lots of cheese, we headed up the valley.  That big ridge of gravel along the left side of the picture below was left behind by the glacier as it melted, only a few decades ago.  The hotel had some old black and white photographs showing the valley filled with ice up to there - it looked very different then.

There are waterfalls down the sides of the valley, and sometimes you can see mountain goats.

A few hours up the valley, looking back down toward the hotel:

 

Me on one of the bridges over mountain streams:

 And Claire with the mountains behind her:

After a few hours we made it up to the lake.  Here's Mom and Dad with the lake in the background:

The trail continued along the lake for a while, and then turned steeply up the side of the mountain.  Until that point the hike had been pretty easy, but after here it was more difficult, with scrambles over large rocks, rough footing, and a relentlessly steep climb which switchbacked upward for what seemed like hours.

After a while, the Hut Coaz (our final destination) started to be easier to see, out by the edge of the glacier.  But we still had about an hour to go to get there...

We saw some marmots, but other than birds, no other wildlife:

Finally we got there!  The view back down the valley was incredible, we could see all the way back to Pontresina, where we had started the afternoon before.

The view of the glacier was also incredible.  It was melting in the afternoon sun, with chunks of ice sliding down the rock, loud cracking sounds, and even little avalanches of ice:

Our last picture from the top... Heading down was much easier of course.  We're looking forward to doing lots more hikes like this next year!  The weather has started to turn cold now, and although it's just five weeks ago that we took these pictures, many of the mountain huts will have closed by now.

Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule Zürich

...also known as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) is where I am doing my masters in Umweltnaturwissenschafte (Environmental Science). Within the environmental sciences master there are a number of focus areas, mine is biology.  All courses are in English, as are most of the masters programs at ETH.  I was quite nervous about going back to school, mostly because ETH has such a good reputation (it is ranked as one of the top schools in the world). I reassured myself that they wouldn't have let me in if I couldn't do it. 

View of Zurich from Campus.

View of the main building at the Central Campus.

So what's it like...I am taking:

Physics I, Population Biology, Ecological Assessment and Evaluation, Ecosystems Management, Environmental Governance, and a Term Paper class.  All of these courses are part of my required core curriculum and add up to 22 credits, however I do not get credit for Physics which is 5 credits.  I am required to take physics as they determined I didn't have enough Physics in my undergraduate (2 semesters wasn't good enough for ETH). I am also required to take Population Biology, I am taking this in lieu of Evolutionary Biology which they originally required me to take, which is only offered in German. 

Physics is, so far, the most time consuming; but fortunately, I am finding it easier than I expected. I have also just started my Term Paper, no lectures I just write a scientific review paper. Which means I need to read (and understand) a large number of scientific papers, summarize their key findings but also make conclusions from the sum a works, ideally provide new insight. My topic (which I will have to narrow down) is "Thermal Adaption in Aquatic Organisms".  This is due the first day of next semester (February 20th) which basically means I will be writing most of it during the "break" between semesters.

Ecological Assessment and Ecosystems Management are very similar and quite easy, I'm suprised they are both core courses. They are also similar to courses I took at UVIC and some of the content is like my previous work.  I am a bit disappointed with these two classes, as I'm not really learning anything new but I don't think I could manage them if they were also difficult or time consuming. However, the professors are interesting and we got to go on a field trip to a wetland. 


My classmates are all quite friendly, most of them are Swiss or German with a few other International students, but not many and none in my exact program. I am definitely older than most of the students, there is one other guy in one of my classes who looks older than me.  The students are curious about me and I have been asked why I'm here (in Switzerland), did I have to do my masters degree (for work), and various other similar questions. My favorite question so far was "had I ever seen a bear?".  In fact yes I have seen many! :)  
As no blog post is complete without pictures here's some from my "Masters Weekend" organized by Umwelt- und Forstfachverein "UFO" which is the student group for Environment and Forestry.  

On the train Saturday morning.

Hiking in a canyon, it is somewhere near where Sherlock Holmes was famously killed (in the book). It rain hard the entire day. 

Fondue for dinner at the hut. 

These pictures look hazy because of all the steam from the fondue and a large number of people in a small room. 

Waiting for the train in Brienz.

Brienz, the rain from Saturday made the air very clear on Sunday. 

Stein-Am-Rhine

The next day we explored Stein-Am-Rhine, which is a very nice old town on the Rhine river.  The big attractions are the castle (which you can see at the top of the hill), some museums, and the town itself, which has a lot of very old buildings.  The buildings have been painted with murals showing scenes from village life, moralistic warnings, historical and legendary scenes, and more

Stein-Am-Rhine, viewed from the bridge

Some of the painted buildings in the town square

After breakfast we hiked up to the castle, through vineyards and then forest.

The view from the hike over the valley and river was great.  It was easy to see the original line of the ancient stone wall which protected the town. Over the years the wall has become incorporated into the buildings, but the boundary and the gates into the town are still there.





























After the hike we returned to town and had a great picnic lunch overlooking the river.  Then we explored one of the local museums. This was two of the old houses in town joined together, with most of the rooms set up with furniture, decoration, and everything just as it would have been in the very early 1800s.  We explored from top to bottom, including the attic, where they were drying meat and nuts, and storing grain, down to the cellar, where wine storage, leather tanning, and other work took place.  Here's one of the model kitchens, where a model kitchen servant is plucking the feathers from a chicken near a ceramic coal-burning stove:

They even had art which would have been typical of that time:

Finally, we took a few more pictures out in the sunshine before we took the train back to Zurich:
The story of St George slaying the dragon is a big deal here.  Some of the buildings are decorated with dragon heads on the corners, and one of the big painted murals on the building walls shows the legend:

Rhinefalls to Stein Am Rhine

Not far from Zurich, up on the Swiss / German border, is the largest waterfall in Europe.  That was the destination of our next outing with my parents.  We took the train north, arrived in the nearby town, and walked along the river towards the waterfall.

The railway bridge over the river just above the falls

The area is rather touristy, with boats cruising around in the mist, ferrying people onto the big rock in the middle of the falls.   But you don't have to buy anything, and can look at the falls from every direction you want for free.

Up above the falls is a castle (of course! this is Europe!) which has been converted into a pretty spiffy youth hostel.

The falls were really quite impressive.  The volume of water pouring down is really immense, so even though the vertical distance is not much compared to many waterfalls in North America, the thunder of the water and the mist results in a spectacular view.

After lunch we caught a boat ride down the river to the medieval village of Stein Am Rhine, where we stayed overnight.  I'll have lots of pictures of the town in the next post - but here's one.  After a very nice (and, of course, terribly expensive!) meal at the hotel restaurant we went for a bit of a walk around the old center of the town before dark.

Hiking along the Uetliberg

The observation tower

The day after our trip to Rapperswil, we hiked along the ridge of the Uetliberg.  This is the classic hike of Zurich, convenient to reach by transit, very close to the city, with a spectacular panoramic view and a hotel with restaurant right at the top, next to a big tower with stairs up to the obvervation platform.


I took a set of pictures and stitched them together into a panorama.  Unfortunately I didn't use a tripod or fixed aperture, so the tiling is rather visible.  Now I know how to do it better - maybe next time we'll be able to see the Alps too!

 

Click the picture for a higher-resolution version:

Here's a version that labels a few things:

Mom and Dad visiting from Canada

Torrey here, finally taking a turn at writing a blog post!  My parents visited Switzerland for three weeks in September, so we got to spend three weekends hosting and travelling with them.  Our first weekend was in and around Zurich.  Our first day, we took a short trip down the side of the lake to Rapperswil, a relatively small town not far from Zurich.

We walked along the lake to the town, and then up to the castle.

Rapperswil from the lakeside walk.

Claire and Mom at the Rapperswil Castle

The castle has a "Polish Museum" dedicated to the history of Polish people, especially Polish people in Switzerland.  Many of them were businessmen, artists, poets, and politicians.  However, I was more interested in the exhibit about Madame Curie, who did important early research on radioactivity, and was the first woman to win a Nobel prize.  The museum has a some of her original laboratory equipment.

Madame Curie exhibit in the Rapperswil Polish Museum

The museum also has a nice collection of interesting art, (and they allowed photography!)

On our way to the train station, we stopped in to visit the Rapperswil Rosegarten.

"Rosengarten der Stadt Rapperswil" -- Rosegarden (of) the City Rapperswil

I practiced my close-up photography for a while... I'm working on becoming a better photographer, but have a lot to learn!  This one turned out nicely though.